Abstract
A component-based generic agent architecture for multi-attribute (integrative) negotiation is introduced and its application is described in a prototype system for negotiation about cars, developed in cooperation with, among others, Dutch Telecom KPN. The approach can be characterized as cooperative one-to-one multi-criteria negotiation in which the privacy of both parties is protected as much as desired. We model a mechanism in which agents are able to use any amount of incomplete preference information revealed by the negotiation partner in order to improve the efficiency of the reached agreements. Moreover, we show that the outcome of such a negotiation can be further improved by incorporating a “guessing” heuristic, by which an agent uses the history of the opponent’s bids to predict his preferences. Experimental evaluation shows that the combination of these two strategies leads to agreement points close to or on the Pareto-efficient frontier. The main original contribution of this paper is that it shows that it is possible for parties in a cooperative negotiation to reveal only a limited amount of preference information to each other, but still obtain significant joint gains in the outcome.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Benn, W., Goerlitz, O., & Neubert, R. (1999). Enabling integrative negotiations by adaptive software agents. In Cooperative Information Agents III, LNAI Vol. 1652 (pp. 335–346). Springer-Verlag.
Bosse, T., & Jonker, C. M. (2005). Human vs. computer behaviour in multi-issue negotiation. In T. Ito, H. Hattori, T. Matsuo, & M. Zhang (Eds.), Proceedings of the first international workshop on rational, robust, and secure negotiations in multi-agent systems, RRS’05, pp. 10–25.
Bosse, T., Jonker, C. M., & Treur, J. (2004). Experiments in human multi-issue negotiation: Analysis and support. In N. R. Jennings, C. Sierra, L. Sonenberg, & M. Tambe, (Eds.), Proceedings of the third international joint conference on autonomous agents and multi-agent systems, AAMAS’04. ACM Press, pp. 672–679. Extended version: Bosse, T., Jonker, C. M., van der Meij, L. & Treur, J. (2007). Automated formal analysis of human multi-issue negotiation processes. Multi-agent and Grid Systems Journal (to appear).
Brazier F.M.T., Jonker C.M., Treur J. (2000). Compositional design and reuse of a generic agent model. Applied Artificial Intelligence Journal 14: 491–538
Brzostowski, J., & Kowalczyk, R. (2006). Experimental evaluation of posibilistic mechanism for negotiation partners selection. In Proceedings of second international workshop on rational, robust, and secure negotiations in multi-agent systems, Hakodate, Japan. Springer Lecture Notes in Computational Intelligence (to appear).
Byde, A., & Chen, K.-Y. AutONA: A System for Automated Multiple 1–1 Negotiation. Fourth ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce, (2003) pp. 198–199.
Coehoorn, R. M., & Jennings, R. M. (2004). Learning an opponent’s preferences to make effective multi-issue negotiation tradeoffs. In Proceedings of sixth international conference on e-commerce, delft, ACM Press, pp. 59–68.
Dash R.K., Parkes D.C., Jennings N.R. (2003). Computational mechanism design: A call to arms. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 18(6): 40–47
Dang J., Huhns M.H. (2006). Concurrent multiple-issue negotiation for internet-based services. IEEE Internet Computing 10(6): 42–49
Faratin P., Sierra C., Jennings N. (2003). Using similarity criteria to make issue trade-offs in automated negotiations. Journal of Artificial Intelligence 142(2): 205–237
Fatima, S., Wooldridge, M., & Jennings, N. R. (2002). Optimal negotiation strategies for agents with incomplete information. In Intelligent Agents VIII, LNAI, Vol. 2333, (pp. 377–392). March 2002, Springer-Verlag.
Fatima, S. S., Wooldridge, M., & Jennings, N. R. (2003). Optimal agendas for multi-issue negotiation. Second international conference on autonomous agents and multiagent systems (AAMAS-03), Melbourne, July 2003, pp. 129–136.
Gutman, R., & Maes, P. (1998). Cooperative vs. competitive multi-agent negotiation in retail electronic commerce. In Proceedings of the second international workshop on cooperative information agents (CIA’98), NAI Vol. 1435, (pp. 135–148) Springer Verlag, Paris.
Hemaissia, M., Seghrouchni, A. E. F., Labreuche, C., & Mattioli, J. (2006). Cooperation-based multilateral multi-issue negotiation for crisis management. In Proceedings of second international workshop on rational, robust, and secure negotiations in multi-agent systems, Hakodate, Japan. Springer LNCI (to appear).
Jonker, C., & Robu, V. (2004). Automated multi-attribute negotiation with efficient use of incomplete preference information. In Proceedings of third international conference on autonomous agents and multi-agent systems (AAMAS-04), New York, pp. 1056–1064, ACM Press.
Jonker, C. M., & Treur, J. (1999). A re-usable broker agent architecture with dynamic maintenance capabilities. In O. Etzioni, J. P. Mueller, & J. Bradshaw (Eds.), Proceedings of the third annual conference on autonomous agents, Agents’99. ACM Press, 1999, pp. 376–377. Extended version: Jonker, C. M., & Treur, J. (2002). Compositional design and maintenance of broker agents. In L. C. Jain, Z. Chen, & N. Ichalkaranje (Eds.), Intelligent Agent and their Applications, (pp. 149–171). Springer-Verlag.
Jonker, C. M., & Treur, J. (2001). An agent architecture for multi–attribute negotiation. In B. Nebel (Ed.), Proceedings of the seventeenth international joint conference on AI, IJCAI’01, 2001, pp. 1195–1201.
Klein, M., Faratin, P., Sayama, H., & Bar-Yam, Y. (2002). Negotiating complex contracts. In Autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. Bologna:AAAI Press.
Klein M., Faratin P., Sayama H., Bar-Yam Y. (2003). Protocols for negotiating complex contracts. IEEE Intelligent Systems Journal, Special Issue Agents & Markets 18(6): 32–38
Lai, G., Li, C., Sycara, K., & Giampapa, J. (2004). Literature review on multi-attribute negotiations, Technical Report CMU-RI-TR-04–66, Carnegie Mellon University, Robotics Institute.
Lai, G., Sycara, K., & Li, C. (2006). A decentralized model for multi-attribute negotiations with incomplete information and general utility functions. In Proceedings of second international workshop on rational, robust, and secure negotiations in multi-agent systems, Hakodate, Japan. Springer LNCI (to appear).
Lewicki R., Saunders D., Minton J. (1997). Essentials of negotiation. Irwin Press.
Luo X., Shadbolt N., Leung H., Lee J. H., Jennings N.R. (2003). A fuzzy constraint based model for bilateral multi-issue negotiations in semi-competitive environments. Artificial Intelligence Journal 142(1–2): 53–102
Rahwan, I., Ramchurn, S. D., Jennings, N. R., McBurney, P., Parsons, S., & Sonenberg L. (2004). Argumentation-based negotiation. Knowledge Engineering Review (to appear).
Raiffa H. (1982). The art and science of negotiation. Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press
Raiffa, H. (1996). Lectures on negotiation analysis. PON Books, Harvard Law School.
Robu, V. (2003). Improving the efficiency of cooperative negotiations in electronic environments with incomplete information. Master Thesis, Vrije Univ, Amst.
Rosenschein J.S., Zlotkin G. (1994). Rules of Encounter. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachussets
Shakshuki, E., & Abu-Draz, S. (2005). Agent-mediated e-commerce system. In Proceedings of the nineteenth international conference on advanced networking and applications (AINA’05), Vol. 2, pp. 739–744, IEEE Computer Society Press.
Somefun K., Gerding E., Bohte S., & La Poutré, H. (2003). Automated negotiation and bundling of information goods. In Agent-mediated electronic commerce V, Melbourne, Australia, July.
Strobel, M. (2000). Effects of electronic markets on negotiation processes. IBM Research Technical Report, Zurich.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0 ), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
About this article
Cite this article
Jonker, C.M., Robu, V. & Treur, J. An agent architecture for multi-attribute negotiation using incomplete preference information. Auton Agent Multi-Agent Syst 15, 221–252 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-006-9009-y
Published:
Issue date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-006-9009-y